


Only Sometimes a Pompous Asshat

by pyrrhical (anoyo)



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Almost M For Jim's Mouth, Gen, jim pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-10
Updated: 2010-08-10
Packaged: 2018-10-10 14:00:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10439235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anoyo/pseuds/pyrrhical
Summary: Jim is really only sometimes a pompous asshat. The rest of the time he's really just sort of a dick.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written 8/10/10. Response to a prompt.

Kirk may not be a pompous asshat 100% of the time, but he will own up to being fairly self-assured -- confident. It's a good trait in a captain, really, since it means that he doesn't look like a pansy in front of the big bad whatevers that they're facing today, since looking like a pansy will inevitably end in everyone getting smeared into space dust, and that would really just suck. No, Kirk is a pretty confident guy.

But even confident guys like to be reassured sometimes; it's in human nature, part of why we have to have one another around, no man being an island, can't jerk yourself off forever -- all of that self-help seminar crap. It takes a pretty confident guy to pull off even a few of Kirk's greatest masterpieces, and so Kirk reasons that it takes some pretty spectacular reassurance to give him the backslapping that he deserves.

Somehow, it's all the backslapping he needs, the first time Spock turns around from his science station to intone, as airily as ever, "I believe I speak for half the crew, Jim, when I say that your knowing how to make back room deals in Andorian has made the unlikeliest climb to fortuitous knowledge seen in at least the past week. You may outdo yourself yet, on the crudest piece of knowledge to wind up, as you say, 'coming in handy.'"

It's the best backhanded compliment Kirk's ever gotten, and it's all he can do to not roll around the floor laughing. It's not the best for its content -- Kirk's gotten some pretty damn good backhanded compliments, what with being brilliant and also an ass -- but for that "first time" part. The part where Spock didn't call him Captain, but Jim. It's all the compliment that Kirk needs to tell him that while Spock is going to hate writing the encounter summary, he is far from ashamed of his captain's performance.


End file.
